Problem with external HDD
 

Hey RS Comp guru's

I have a Nexstar 3 External Enclosure + 300GB Sata II HDD
Running a P5K mobo with E-Sata capabilities. It took me awhile to try and figure it out, but originally the E-sata was NOT working and the USB was working. Go great, format the HDD then everything should be good to go right? Wrong. Everytime I format the HDD, everything SEEMS fine. EVerything works the way it's suppose to, hotswapping and all. So I haven't turned on my External HDD for about a month, then last night I tried to turn it on while the comps on it froze my comp. So then I tried rebooting the comp with the External HDD on and it then detects the HDD in mycomputer but wont let me click it. It forces a reformat. So I reformat it and the same thing happens all over.

When I go to disk management, it says the HDD is in RAW format. So I keep reformatting in the NTFS format and everything is all good once I format. I can use the HDD and transfer stuff. But when I power off the external HDD and reboot the HDD shows up again as RAW format!

I can't figure it out for the life of me. Ideas anyone?

Thanks

are you connecting as esata or through USB 2?

Esata.

No one else has responded, I'll safely assume this is not normal and beyond most techys knowledge.

I'm running Vista 64 if that helps too.

This is one troublesome OS.

If you want to troubleshoot the problem, rip the HD out and install it internal. That will eliminate half the possible problems. If it doesn't work then, you probably have a faulty HD.

esata actually has quite a bit of problems....

my mobo has esata and i need to install like so many different drivers just so my seagate esata ext-hd to work

I think thats what it is. I ended up plugging in the HDD via USB and it works. All the files I had on there I can transfer back and forth. But when I plug it in VIA esata thats when shit gets all fucked.

That really sucks though. I purposely bought the more expensive enclosure for the esata capabilities too. Ugh.

Thanks guys. Any further feedback will be appreciated.

i haven't been able to get esata to work for quite a while now - and I'm using one of those sata/usb2/esata controller cards. I've tried it out in XP and then with Vista, and its flaky. I can keep it running for maybe a week before it drops out and doesn't work anymore - same issue of finding that its in RAW mode. What i haven't tried is formatting the drive to FAT32 mode to see if that makes any difference.

everytime I hotswap my HD into the esata port, it hangs everything even though I have ACHI and esata driver installed. Ending up I bought a Lan enclosure and call it a day.

That is uber gay.

Well looks like I write off the whole esata thing and just use it via USB.

Iceman what version of Vista are you running? 64bit?

I seem to be getting all these small issues with Vista 64. SD reader won't work on my vista 64. Even with all the newest updates. BUt the USB port on the reader works.

Vista 32, and the esata is so flaky that its not funny anymore. I've tried on the desktop and my dell laptop, and its not stable enough to use everyday. I'm always afraid that I can't recover what i put on the drive, so I've dropped it entirely

Yeah I've given up on esata. I wish people mentioned this to me before I spent double on an enclosure for esata. DOH!

Anyways, thanks for the input. I've given up and just stuck it out using USB. It's not that slow I guess. :p

well, its either USB2 or a LAN enclosure. How much is portability an issue to you? For me, I have a LAN enclosure from Buffalo that does the job - all it does is act like NAS. I don't ever take it off or turn it off. I have a few 250-320 usb drives for moving things around, but thats about it.